William Ayers Has Worked With Republicans For Years

Republicans served on the very same two committees in which Obama worked with Ayers–the main “association” between the two. William Ayers Has Worked With Republicans For YearsBy Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 20th, 2008With its poll numbers sinking by the day and finding itself simply unable to match its opponent in economic matters, the Republican McCain/Palin ticket has worked itself into a frenzy trying to morph Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) into Chicago Weatherman-turned-University of Chicago professor William Ayers’ bomb-making, terrorist soulmate.The respected senator from Illinois cannot really be ‘one of us’, a wild-eyed Sarah Palin insists before jingoistic, hate-spewing crowds.”I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who has targeted his own country,” she claimed.But there’s a little problem with this analysis: Republicans have proudly worked with William Ayers for years. Republicans served on the very same two committees in which Obama worked with Ayers–the main “association” between the two.In fact, it was a panel funded by a wealthy Republican–one of John’ McCain’s top supporters, no less–which first hired Bill Ayers to work with Obama.     On October 8th, the McCain camp proudly released its list of a hundred former ambassadors who were officially endorsing the Republican for president.Second on that list was Leonore Annenberg, who currently serves as president and chairman for the Annenberg Foundation. The widow of conservative philanthropist Walter Annenberg, Ms. Annenberg herself previously had served as “chief of protocol” at the Reagan State Department.Her Annenberg Foundation was the group that bank-rolled the Chicago education board which hired both William Ayers and Barack Obama. It is on this board where the two first sat together with others–including Republican leaders–in the same room a total of six times, to aid needy Chicago schoolchildren.Others who served on the two Chicago charitable boards at the center of the Obama-Ayers “connection” include the ex-publisher of the famed conservative newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, officials from banking giant UBS and multi-national petroleum company BP–whose Political Action Committee (PAC) leans heavily Republican–and the former head of Northwestern University.A former GOP lawmaker in Illinois told National Public Radio on Oct. 6th that slandering Obama for mere board work with Ayers simply is “nonsensical.””It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier…It’s ridiculous,” stated Republican Rep. Diana Nelson.”There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly,” added the Republican.The son of Thomas Ayers–former head of Commonwealth Edison Company–William Ayers resurfaced years after his “Weatherman” days to accept a teaching position at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There he eventually distinguished himself as one of the top school-reform experts in the Second City.The educator had so completely changed his life by that point that even William Ibershof, chief federal prosecutor of the Weathermen during the 1970s, recently felt compelled to write an editorial published by The New York Times on Oct. 10th, in which he stated that Bill Ayers now “has become a responsible citizen.”In fact during the mid-1990s, Ayers was hired by a group of local charities that hoped to talk the Annenberg Foundation into investing $50 million in ailing Chicago schools. Ayers co-penned its Annenberg application, which the Republican-headed foundation duly accepted and approved.Three people spear-headed the drive to get Annenberg to fund the project: MacArthur’s Adele Simmons, Joyce’s Deborah Leff and Spencer’s Patricia Graham.All three were impressed with Obama’s previous work as a member of the Joyce Board, and hired him to serve as chairman of the Annenberg effort.Obama, as chairman, did work with Bill Ayers on that board. So did such others as top Republican Scott Smith, ex-publisher of the right-wing Chicago Tribune, and current president of Tribune Publishing; industrialist Susan Crown; former Continental Bank executive Edward Bottum; ex-Northwestern University chief Arnold Weber; and former University of Illinois President Stanley Ikenberry. Hardly radical types.Obama and Ayers worked together again on the Woods Fund Board, which aids arts and community groups. Others who served on that board with Ayers have included the public affairs chief for USB Investment Bank–a company which is one of the most popular investments for U.S. congressional Republicans, according to The Center for Responsive Politics–the Midwest community affairs director for BP and Civic Committee of the Commercial Club President R. Eden Martin.So Republicans agree with hiring Bill Ayers for important positions, they approve his applications for funding, they work with him on boards–and they remain firm patriots, who simply work with an education expert who gave up a violent way of life decades ago. But when Barack Obama–who now stands between the GOP and four more years of White House rule–does exactly the same thing, he and he alone is proclaimed a “pal of terrorists”.That is a double standard, pure and simple. It is pure politics, and it doesn’t pass the smell test.Like what you’re reading so far? 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